


These Crowns We Bear

by BabylonsFall



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Elementals, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Episode: s01e01 And the Crown of King Arthur, Gen, Minor Eve Baird/Flynn Carsen, Non-Consensual Magic Acquisition, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Pre-Canon into Canon-Adjacent, of a sort anyway, see notes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-20 13:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15534954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabylonsFall/pseuds/BabylonsFall
Summary: Elemental spirits and the chosen of the Library have a varied and colorful history together. It changes the story of the Librarian and the Librarians in Training surprisingly little (and yet so, so much).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, almost six months ago, I asked [jacobstone](https://jacobstone.tumblr.com) if I could write a fic off their [au idea](https://jacobstone.tumblr.com/post/170824924536/first-episode-au):
> 
>  
> 
> _Au where elementals exist and are sought out for their power but they move hosts every few decades and Flynn has been a Librarian for ten years but also the host of the element Fire. He meets Eve and the same day she becomes the host of Water, and receives her letter for the Library. They go after Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Jacob who also recently become the hosts of Wind, Lightning, and Earth respectively._
> 
>  
> 
> _Basically everything goes pretty similar except they are recently turned elementals and are trying to not freak out under the guidance of a frazzled Flynn and an annoyed immortal Jenkins._
> 
>  
> 
> And given that I can never do anything in a timely fashion, its taken me this long to start this BUT I'M DOING IT. With a few minor differences, but those'll show themselves. The original idea is all jacobstone's, and I hope this does some kind of justice to it.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> _The tag for non-consensual magic acquisition is in reference to how, much like in canon, Jacob is not a fan of magic and as such, had he been given a choice, he wouldn't have accepted the elemental. He wasn't given a choice, much like he wasn't given a choice with his tattoo. Neither are the others. I feel this falls within a canon-scope, but if anyone felt squicked out by that in the show, this is probably one to avoid, as it comes up a lot. If you feel like a better tag should be used, please let me know!_

**10 Years Ago...**

 

_ He doesn’t know what makes him think to go check in the first place. Could be the...the thrill that seems to go through the Annex, with no explanation—a pretty sure sign of unexpected magic. Or, maybe he’s just been on this earth for too long. Something feels...not wrong, but certainly...different. _

_ It’s not a long walk, from where he’d been working in his lab. Longer than perhaps it used to be—he hasn’t gone to look in far too long, he muses.  _

_ A heavy key—all for show, honestly; the door won’t open without permission, key or not—turned in a heavy lock that’s less for show and has been known to eat metal, should the powers that be decide they don’t want to be disturbed. Drama mongers, the lot of them. _

_ The room itself is nothing special—bare stone walls, lit with a clean pale glow by something otherwise not visible. Despite there being no deep corners, no outcroppings in the stone, shadows play about the room, shallow and shifting—playful almost. _

_ Drama mongers. _

_ There’s nothing in the room that shouldn’t be there—there’s nothing in the room period. Just. Shadows. Shadows and a...a sense, brushing up against his nerves. _

_ It takes him a moment to figure out what’s different. _

_ The room feels emptier than it normally does. For not having shapes, forms, they somehow manage to have a presence. And one is missing. _

_ Well then. A new Librarian to avoid it seems. _

* * *

The thing is.

The thing _ is _ .

...Nope, nevermind, there is no  _ thing _ .

Jacob makes it to the New York state line. Ends up pulled over on the side of the road, just staring at the damn sign. Waits for the sun to burn low. And then he’s turning his car back around, and heading back home.

The invitation stays on the passenger seat the whole way back.

If asked later, he wouldn’t be able to say when it happened.

Maybe on that damn trip. Maybe shortly after.

There’s no moment in time he can  _ point to _ , and it drives him absolutely nuts.

(When he’s too tired, too frustrated, to worry over the actual details and chances and frivolities, he thinks, maybe, maybe it was when he pulled over in front of that sign. That maybe he mistook the nausea churning in his gut as anxiety instead of a sign that something was slipping under his skin. Or, with his luck, it was both.)

* * *

Jacob throws the invitation away as soon as he gets home. Buries it under a stack of unpaid bills Pop had foisted on him just before he’d left.

He’s long past the days of having to hide his shit in the trash can—perks of living alone he supposed—but habits die hard, and in all honesty…he doesn’t want to look at it anymore than he wants someone else to see it.

Those first couple of days he’s back, he just. Avoids.

Avoids looking at the trash he still hasn’t actually thrown out. Avoids Pop’s phonecalls asking when the hell he was getting back—trust the old man to get frustrated instead of going down the damn block to see his car parked in front of the building. (Though, he supposes, that is  _ partially  _ his fault, since he’d told everyone he’d be gone for upwards of ten days. Not the five he’d actually been.) Avoids Slayton’s phonecalls, because without fail if Pop can’t find him, he’ll go find the nearest substitute.

He can’t actually avoid Slayton at his door though. Both because he’d—rather stupidly—given the man his spare key, and because at that point they both knew Slayton would sit outside as long as it took Jacob to man up and actually talk to him.

There’s not a whole lot of talking, that night. There’s a couple beers on the coffee table, a tv turned to some inane action movie they’re both pretending they haven’t seen a truly pathetic number of times, and there’s a pointed glance towards the overflowing trashcan that is pointedly ignored. But no real talking.

That comes two days later. They’re parked in a pair of stools at the far end of the dinged up bar in their favorite dingy hangout. The place is crowded, but everyone’s minding their own damned business, with enough smoke and low chatter to coat everything in a haze of false privacy.

Jacob skirts around the truth. Can’t actually tell Slayton why he went to New York, except that he’d been offered a job. Can’t tell him he never made it into the actual interview, only that he’d turned it down. Can’t say that he’s not sure if the pit in his stomach is relief or regret, because he’s got a job to do here, a job his family is relying on, and it may not be ‘worthy of his smarts’ (Slayton’s words, not his), but it’s something he’s  _ good  _ at, and he can’t just walk away.

Slayton only calls him an idiot once, so that’s nice. And if Jacob avoids looking him in the eyes ‘cause he can’t stand another person looking at him with resigned disappointment, well. Neither thinks to bring it up.

* * *

He may not be able to pinpoint  _ when  _ this...this  _ thing _ showed up, sliding under his skin and fitting against his bones. But Jacob does know, that night, walking back home after Slayton told him in no uncertain terms that his keys were forfeit ( _ fine, he’d wanted to walk to clear his head anyway _ ) was the first time he noticed it.

Of course, he could’ve blamed it on the spinning in his head, the blurriness to his eyes that followed him out into the night from the haze of the bar.

But it  _ felt _ deeper than that.

It starts with a rumble. A deep bass of a thing, rolling beneath his feet.

It’s enough that he has to stop, has to drop and put his hands to the ground. He’s ninety percent certain it’s not the right type of...feeling, for a sinkhole. But he’s also self-aware enough to know he barely knows up from down right now.

But, even though the feeling persists down to his bones, he can’t feel a damn thing under his hands.

The disconnect is enough to sober him up just enough that he can tell that while he still can’t feel anything with his hands, the rattling in his bones is now strong enough to...to  _ hurt _ , like a headache, throbbing and pulsing.

And that’s when the blare of a car horn tears through the air, sending him sprawling on his ass as big, off road tires tear up dirt and rock, swerving to avoid him.

He doesn’t stick around to say sorry—or, more likely, get his lights knocked out. The second Jacob can move again, he’s running.

* * *

It’s not too hard to sound so pathetic over the phone, Pop only grumbles a little about him needing a few more days. There’s no big contract coming up anyway, just smaller ones that’ve run without him for months now. He can take a little while longer off.

Its for the best really. Ever since that night, he hasn’t been able to walk out the damn door without that rolling bass shooting up his spine, pounding at the back of his head.

He figured out pretty quickly it was the damn cars on the highway, just outside his apartment. Didn’t explain  _ why  _ he could  _ feel  _ them—but it was a bit of a relief knowing  _ what  _ it was.

He also found that if he stayed in his apartment, with its thick carpets and its being on the third floor, he could almost drown it out.

Almost.

It’s a gradual, steady increase from that point on.

Jacob can feel the cars on the highway. The ones pulling into the parking lot. He can feel the people in his building walking across the asphalt—across the cement of the sidewalk outside.

He doesn’t mind the people so much. The soft pattering of footsteps is nothing like the incessant rolling of the cars.

From there, he starts sensing a...a  _ thrum _ . It doesn’t hurt, is his first thought, when he notices it. It’s almost like the people—it’s not good, it doesn’t hurt, it just  _ is _ . 

That takes a little longer to figure out.

And when he does, there’s a sound caught in his throat, and he’s not sure if it’s a laugh or a sob. Because  _ what the hell _ .

It’s the damn grass and...and the old hollow oak that hangs half over his building—the half-dead side that was struck by lightning last year is what tips him off. Where the living things, rooted in the ground—going far deeper (and  _ when  _ he started being able to figure out depth is beyond him, because he’s still firmly in the  _ what the everloving hell is happening to me _ phase) than he’d thought they could—are thrumming with life and energy, there’s a gaping pit, where the tree stands, fused up against all the energy still moving around it. It’s a scar, and it’s  _ weird _ , but it’s not...wrong. He can tell it’s too quiet, too healed over to ever live again, and there’s a good chance it’ll take what’s left of the oak down with it.

He hides in his apartment for another week after that, avoiding the window closest to the oak.

* * *

In the end, it just...is what it is. Jacob gets better, as the weeks pass, at blocking out all the new sensory information. When he’s feeling up to it, he slowly but surely learns how to parse everything that’s being taken in, whether he’s paying attention or not.

Learns to tell which field he passes is going to make it to the next harvest and which is just waiting another week to give out in the heat. Learns to get a sense of distance and speed as he feels pitter-patters and rolling thunder through the baked earth under his feet.

* * *

_ He doesn’t think of it, really, when he finds himself checking the room again, six months later. Another...thrill had shot through the Annex, sharp enough that he could almost taste the energy as it echoed, from the Library to the Annex and back. _

_ Another presence was missing. _

_ Earth and Fire. _

_ Odd mix for a Librarian and a Guardian. But not the weirdest he’d seen. _

_ Things seemed well underway without his snooping, so he left well enough alone and tried not to take it too personally when, when he reached for the key, the handle simply broke off in his hand. Seemed he wouldn’t be visiting for awhile. _

* * *

It’s been almost a year since this thing started. Jacob’s got a better handle on things—enough that he’s confident enough to use his abilities to help out with the business, with setting up job sites and keeping the machinery away from unexpected pockets and stone.

Everyone called it luck. Pop called him his damn lottery ticket.

Jacob just smiled and kept going like nothing was different.

It, whatever  _ it  _ was, still sat weird on his bones, taking up space it wasn’t supposed to. It didn’t quite ache, but that was the best way he could think to describe it.

He had to be careful with how long he spent in cities, before the rolling and pitter-patter and the thrumming became  _ too much _ . Had to watch what he said, couldn’t say how he knew what he knew (at least he had practice with that).  Had to learn to look surprised at people showing up unexpectedly. Had to pretend he couldn’t feel everything going on around him for a good half-mile—a good mile, if he concentrated—and how it simultaneously made his skin crawl and made his heart beat solidly, comfortingly.

He was getting used to the white noise in his head. Liked it even, some days, even with its drawbacks.

Jacob still couldn’t explain a damn thing, but this was his life now, and it wasn’t like one more big secret would tip him over an edge he’d fallen off years ago.

Things were looking  _ good _ .

* * *

It starts small again.

* * *

(Later, later he’d wonder why it didn’t show up earlier. Why this thing stuck to  _ showing  _ for so long. He can never make up his mind if he’s grateful it did, so he could get at least some enjoyment out of it, or pissed, because he should’ve shoved it to the back of his mind the first chance he got.)

* * *

Where Jacob can feel the gap next to the thrumming, if he focuses on it,  _ really focuses _ , he can feel the gap start to mend. 

He kind of did it on accident, the first time.

After that first week, he hadn’t avoided the oak outside his building anymore. Had decided that, yep, still weird, but...natural. And the empty space was an amazing relief to focus on when everything got to be too much.

But then that damn scar starting humming, buzzing under his skin, and when he looked up from where he’d been reading by the window, the blackened wood was chipping away—fresh green and spring brown replacing it.

He’d also discovered that  _ that  _ was tiring as hell. Without paying attention, he’d wiped himself out.

And even though he resolutely avoided the oak again, it wasn’t too hard to tell: the scar wasn’t gone, but it was definitely getting there, even without his intervention.

He didn’t focus on the gaps anymore.

* * *

The first time he cracks stone, he has to leave the job site for the day. One of their drills had been heading straight for a buried slab, and he hadn’t been able to make himself heard. A moment of panic, a flash of directed... _ something _ , and he could feel the stone beneath the drill simply...split.

Not enough to save the damn drill. But that might be because Jacob had had to pull inward, quietly gasping as energy slammed into him. This was nothing like filling a living gap—nothing like mending the life and the roots around him. That was slow, energy-draining,  _ painful _ if he didn’t pull back in time. This... _ this  _ was like grabbing a live-wire.

* * *

Jacob wishes that that had scared him off.

* * *

It’s a completely normal day.

Beautiful blue sky, not a cloud for miles.

Job site’s on pause, trying to investigate the pit that opened up around one of the drills.

It’s not too deep—just enough for a couple men to get in, take a look around, see if anything’s about to come crashing down.

Jacob and his Pop are still topside.

Hell, Jacob doesn’t even remember what started the fight. If there even was a start. Maybe it was Pop making a comment about how his lottery ticket had finally turned up bad. Maybe it was the frustration building in Jacob’s gut because he’d known that the earth had been about to give way, but he hadn’t been able to get over there in time. Maybe it was just Tuesday.

But when Jacob whirls on his Pop, gets in his face, he can feel that rolling again. But its not coming from the ground. No, this time, this time it’s coming from his bones, spreading outwards instead of in.

He almost ignores the rumbling then. Almost passes it off as one of the trucks rolling by too close. Until he realizes he can’t hear any machinery, any cars.

Until he realizes that Pop has gone bone white and isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s looking at the pit. Where rocks are starting to jump with how fast the ground is shaking. Where dirt and rocks are falling in, loosening up and threatening to bring down the thin roof of earth over the heads of the men still down there.

There’s a sharp  _ crack _ as the earth does exactly that.

* * *

Jacob’s not sure how much he was able to control, and how much was just damn luck, but two men get sent to the hospital for broken bones. One for a concussion. And the rest go home with bruises and scrapes, but nothing serious.

* * *

It takes a month for him to learn how to shut it all off. Or, at least, convince himself he can ignore it.

No more sensing, no more feeling, resolutely ignoring what slips through anyway, when he’s tired or sick or drunk.

Something presses against his bones, sometimes. Makes them ache and his skin crawl. A couple drinks in and he can almost imagine that something’s listening to him.

_ Sucks for you. I didn’t want you there anyway _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought of the start of this?
> 
> The goal of this is to be quick and make myself get through writers block. Promising absolutely nothing, but the goal is for the next chapter to be up tomorrow or the day after. Wish me luck!
> 
> (and come say hi on [tumblr](https://distinctivelibrarians.tumblr.com)!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I promised nothing about when this would actually be posted. (But I'm also pretty proud of myself that I'm only a day late??)
> 
> Thank you so much for the response to the last chapter—I'm so glad (and very surprised) you peeps like this, you have no idea!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter!

**1 Month Ago...**

 

_He’s in front of the door before he even makes the conscious decision to give in to the Library’s completely unsubtle hinting (echoing winds through the halls, slamming doors, flaring lights. All very dramatic)._

_He hasn’t been back in a decade, despite the stories he’s heard of the Librarian. Nothing was exploding—no magically induced earthquakes, unexpected volcanic eruptions, catastrophic meteor showers or the like. Nothing awful had happened, and that was all he cared about._

_So what if, as far as he could tell, Fire was the only one accounted for? Not his problem._

_For all they were bound to the Library, they were not actually beholden to it. They could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted._

_And if he was pretty certain that, if they were bored enough, they sometimes used that freedom expressly to mess with him, well, there wasn’t much he could do about it._

_Regardless, here he was at the room again, a decade long since past. The door was hanging open on its hinges. He didn’t even have to actually go in the damn room to know it was emptier than it’d been in...in centuries, likely. He did step in, though, to see if the one left felt like sharing any information._

_Given exactly who was left, it was unlikely._

_Sure enough, though the room had taken on a refracted glow to it, waves of shadows climbing up the wall, the actual spirit within barely graced him with its attention. The shapes it casts onto the wall are calmer than normal, less playful. But watching them, he can feel a cold thrill of dread crawling up his spine—just knowing something was going on that he couldn’t see. That he couldn’t stop._

_He shot a glare in the general direction of the ceiling before turning sharply on his heel and walking back out. He’s pretty sure he caught it’s attention at the end there, if the thinly veiled amusement he can feel is anything to go by._

* * *

Later, if asked, Cassandra could definitely be accused of...embellishing things. Just a little.

She’s just clocking off her shift at the hospital, pulling her coat around her shoulders as she steps out into the night when a gust of wind sweeps around the corner, nearly knocks her off her aching feet.

She’ll tell everyone that _that’s_ when she gets it _—_ whatever _it_ is, anyway.

Much, much later, she may tell anyone who asks the truth.

Not an overly portentous gust of wind. Nothing so dramatic, or even fitting.

Rather, she makes it home that night, head pounding, eyes drooping, and really just wanting to curl into bed for the next twelve hours before her next shift.

She makes it as far as the couch, intending to take her shoes off and then make it the rest of the way to her bedroom. Sitting down’s a mistake she knows she’s making even as she does it. But it feels _awesome_ , so whatever. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s crashed on the couch for no other reason than she just didn’t want to get up again, and it probably won’t be the last.

Shoes successfully removed, she ends up stretched out lengthwise on the couch, alternating between finding shapes in the ceiling and trying to convince herself to get up again.

Light from a passing car stretches pale gold across her ceiling and far wall, briefly illuminating her small space—couch, coffee table, tv in the corner, a dining table behind her currently stacked with paperwork and bills.

In the daylight, gold highlights catch in the wood of the old dining table, the one she found on the side of the road with a busted leg—it’s a little wobbly, but a couple blocks of wood have mostly fixed it. The couch is dull and dark once the light passes, but she can trace the bright flowers and vines stitched into the fabric from memory. There’s a carpet haphazardly tucked half-way under the couch and the coffee-table, a bright green with yellow and blue swirls that remind her of summer, and the walls are absolutely littered with paintings and pictures she’s carefully curated from local thrift shops and antique markets.

It’s not the best place she’s ever lived in, but it is _hers_ , and she’s made it a home, as best she could.

It’s the only place she really relaxes—lets the sounds and scents and feelings swirl around in her head and her vision. She breathes in the musty smell of the books she has stacked on the coffee-table, the stale coffee she accidentally left in the pot before she left for work, listens as cars zip by outside, occasionally throwing up more splashes of gold across her walls.

She breathes in. Breathes out.

Feels... _something_ slip up her spine, settling at the base of her skull.

She’s sitting up straight, wide awake, in the next blink—not panicking, not just yet, but definitely paying attention.

Half of her wants to wave it off—it’s not the first time the countdown in her head has thrown her something new and unexpected. It’d come up in her next appointment, accompanied by ‘I’m sorry’s and soft looks that make her skin crawl for all that they also settle her heart. And there’d be nothing she could do but adapt. Again.

But this...didn’t feel like that. She’s too used to examining the workings of her own mind, parsing and breaking it down, piece by piece, and this...this doesn’t feel like _her_ , and that _should_ be freaking her out more than it is.

Which kind of makes her want to laugh—not in a good way—because there’s plenty that qualifies as _her_ that’s currently trying to kill her, while this new thing...isn’t. Yet anyway. The bar is set really, really low.

And she needs sleep. She’s pretty sure none of her thoughts or logic chains are actually making sense.

She gives the new feeling a mental poke, best she can (she’s pretty sure she’s imagining the entire interaction, but whatever), but all it does is...is turn in on itself almost. Becomes smaller. Harder for her to pinpoint.

Its official.

She needs sleep.

She shoots a message off to Samantha, her boss and the closest thing she has to a friend at the hospital, to let her know she needs the next day off. She doesn’t even have to wait a minute before her phone’s lighting up with a message telling her to take the next three. Considering Samantha has been trying to get her to use her vacation days—sweet older woman, knows the most about what Cassandra’s dealing with, tries looking out for her in her own way—she really shouldn’t have been surprised. Unexpected three day weekend it is.

* * *

It takes two days of poking and prodding and spinning what she finds on its axis before Cassandra can admit what she knew the second whatever it was had settled in for the night.

She had no idea what it is, but it wasn’t going to hurt her. Or, at least, that wasn’t its goal.

It couldn’t...it couldn’t _talk_ to her, or anything like that (because that would be far too helpful, honestly), but she could get...impressions. If she focused hard enough. And ignored the headache that came with it.

One such impression has her leaving the apartment, the evening of the second day.

Where it’s settled at the base of her skull has become almost comfortable—it’s not taking up space so much as filling what was empty there.

(She knows, with a pit in her stomach, that she should be monumentally freaked out at this point. And, if she’s being honest with herself, a small, tucked away part of her is. But she’s been ignoring that small, scared part of herself since junior year of high school, so she just shoves it aside. Decides to trust her gut instead, and her gut’s telling her that even if this thing _is_ dangerous, it’s also something she’s never seen, never heard about, never even thought to think about, and it might just be the most interesting thing that’s ever happened in her life. Damn if she’s going to let that pass her by.)

She ends up in a park, about two blocks from her apartment. Plenty of street lights nearby, and lamp posts further in, with just as many benches on the side of the wandering jogging path. She settles onto one and turns her focus inward.

_Well?_

There’s no direct reaction, which she was half expecting anyway.

So, she settles in to wait.

It takes a good hour, maybe two—Cassandra gets a bit lost, tracing the jogging path and trying to figure out which trees were planted on a grid and which had popped up over the years as nature tried to take over the neatly manicured park, tasting strawberries and oranges on her tongue as the grid gets larger and more in depth—before she notices it.

 _It_ being...well, a conversation. Completely innocuous—someone complaining about needing a break, someone else responding that they should go another half-mile before walking it out.

She glances around, a soft frown curling her lips. While the area was almost never _empty_ , it was late enough in the evening that visitors to the park were few and far between, and she hadn’t seen anyone in the last half-hour. And while she could see the street still from where she sat, with its passing cars and quick-walking pedestrians, there wasn’t anyone close enough for her to hear.

She focuses on the conversation again, trying to pinpoint where its coming from. This time...this time she notices the glide of the breeze, gently brushing past her—cool with the promise of a chilled night, and carrying the smell of fresh cut grass and gasoline. And footsteps. The conversation is loud and clear once she focuses again. Seems whoever wanted to walk won out.

Her phone is out before a complete thought has formed. Samantha’s absolutely _delighted_ that Cassandra’s calling in her overflowing vacation time, even with the break in protocol. And though she feels a bit bad about playing up the need for a break, as two joggers come into view around the bend of the path, walking and chattering with each other, Cassandra can’t really find it in her to regret it.

* * *

The next two weeks are spent trying to figure it out.

More poking, prodding, spinning, and spinning, and spinning until she’s so dizzy and giddy she can’t stop smiling.

* * *

Her favorite spot is the bench by her bedroom window. She’s about ninety percent certain that that window was never supposed to actually open. But when she’d moved in, it had easily enough, and though she was careful to lock it at night, she currently spent most of her afternoons with it thrown wide open. Just. Listening.

She can’t quite get a handle on things like distance or time, not yet. But she is getting better at...at following. She can trace the car with the almost-flat tire for a good five minutes before it moves out of her range. She can follow the mother talking on the phone with her son, congratulating him for something Cassandra doesn’t catch (everything about this is _amazing_ and all, but she’s not going to eavesdrop if she can help it). She hears two dogs get in a barking and growling match, has to wince as their owners clearly try, and fail, to haul them away for a good ten minutes.

She gets lost in the flow of traffic, in its rhythms and stops and starts, mixed with the dull roar of moving people as crosswalks go green.

* * *

Another two days and she can follow the breeze to the Hudson, smell it like she’s standing on the banks. Not that she particularly _wants_ to. But from there, she figures out how to follow the drifting air coming from outside the city. Its cleaner. Brighter. Less likely to give her headaches if she focuses on it.

* * *

It’s the last day of her impromptu vacation and Cassandra’s curled up on her bench, mug of tea in her hands, just getting lost in the flow of traffic again. Building a map based on guesses of speed and distance, mixed with what she knows of the traffic in certain areas (she’s still not sure if she’s got that right, can’t figure out how to test it, but it’s still a fun exercise). She’ll occasionally stretch, pick up the sounds coming from the storefronts, the smells from the delis, reorient herself that way. She can’t do it for too long—she figured out pretty quickly that following too many strands too quickly is a good way to get her head pounding and her vision swimming.

Once, and once only, she managed to give herself a nosebleed from the pressure. She’s been more careful since then.

Point is, she doesn’t notice. Doesn’t notice until she _can’t_ not.

She looks away from her window, shakes her head to clear the last of the strands still filtering in.

Finds her hand curling in the steam coming from her mug. It’s an empty fidget—something she can’t help but do when she gets lost in her head.

But the thing is. The thing _is_ . The steam’s curling around her hand. Actively _around_ , instead of just being interrupted.

Curling in her palm as she watches, twisting between her fingers.

Actually focusing _on_ the steam gets her nothing—indeed, as if some spell has been broken, it starts acting completely normal. Splitting around her hand and dissipating in the air around her.

She bites her lip, eyes narrowed.

Focuses on the breeze coming in through her window—cool and quick, heavy with clamoring sounds asking for her attention.

Focuses. And _pushes_.

Almost immediately, the steam curls in her palm again, following the push.

She can’t keep it up for long. It’s a weird feeling that roils through her, when she mentally steps back—she feels brimming with energy, but also like she’s a sieve, that same energy leaking and spilling out of her in random cracks she didn’t even know existed. She feels...hollow. Filled up and emptied out, over and over.

Enough of that then.

It’s easy enough to break her concentration. To leave the steam alone. Feel the hollowness recede.

Even as she starts trying to figure out if she can focus on the air around the water. For the next time.

Curled around at the base of her skull, something hums, rumbling in her head and settles in close, filling in those cracks she’d found. A small smile curls the corner of her mouth as she closes her eyes. Breathes in the steam for a moment.

_We’re just getting started._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback of any kind means the world ^^


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